This week has been really fun! We got our pulse sensor early on, but we decided not to use it. It was too sensitive to movement but also had to be placed accurately on the skin in order to get a reading, so it would have been difficult if not impossible to get an accurate reading every time. This was disappointing, but we quickly got to work on coding an algorithm to figure out the blood pressure in another way. Our first idea didn’t work because it required too much memory on the arduino (but we can always get a bigger and better arduino if we need to) so we started working on another code! The new idea works by only saving the last five pressure readings, as well as any relative maximums and minimums. Then, by calculating the largest maximum, it can find the mean arterial pressure.

We were also able to put the device in a laser cut box. While it is not at all conveniently sized, it’s nice to be able to carry the entire device in one hand instead of on lots of breadboards!

 

 

By the end of last week, the LEDs and LCD were working perfectly in the new box!

Next week, we hope to get the code running accurately! Then we’ll work on downsizing to a more convenient hand-held monitor.